Fri 05:48 The focus for Friday is on rallying. This year the World Rally Championship's Italian round is a two-day event, which means a packed Friday of eight stages, starting just before 8am local time and running into darkness.

Fri 05:50 As well as all the action as it happens from Sardinia, we'll also bring you news from the paddocks as Formula Renault 3.5's Russian weekend gets underway with practice at Moscow Raceway, and NASCAR's weekend of turning left and right commences with practice at Sonoma.

Fri 05:52 We'll also be keeping abreast of the major Formula 1 news, with a verdict due in the FIA International Tribunal's examination of the Mercedes/Pirelli tyre test affair, and will have the latest from the Le Mans 24 Hours paddock on the event's rest day before qualifying and the start.

Fri 06:04 WRC - Italy: Very slight delay to the first stage, but Khalid Al-Qassimi's Citroen should now be commencing the 31.08 kilometres of Monte Lerno.

Fri 06:19 WRC - Italy: It's been over two months since dominant championship leader Sebastien Ogier won a rally.

He was defeated by the visiting Sebastien Loeb in Argentina, then had technical problems right at the start in Greece, where his Volkswagen team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala took a breakthrough first win for his new employers.

That brought Latvala up to second in the standings behind his team-mate.

It's been an amazing week for Evans. When M-Sport Ford driver Nasser Al-Attiyah had to withdraw due to illness, Evans was entered to replace him - but using his regular RRC Ford not Al-Attiyah's WRC machine.

But when the FIA pointed out that the rules only allow one element of the entry to be changed at this late stage, Evans found himself in the top-class car instead. He also has to work with Al-Attiyah's co-driver Giovanni Bernacchini.

"It's not feeling great at the moment," Evans admits at the stage end, "but I've got to be patient."

Fri 06:35 WRC - Italy: A bad start to PG Andersson's WRC return with the AT Rallye Sport Ford. He picks up a puncture, and his dust is a hassle for the following Martin Prokop too.

Fri 06:38 WRC - Italy: Times tumbling at the head of the order now as road conditions improve and the works cars start coming through. Andreas Mikkelsen, Dani Sordo and Mads Ostberg each go fastest in turn.

Fri 06:41 WRC - Italy: Temperature hits 30 degrees for the first time this morning. That's according to VW's usually wholly accurate clock thermometer.

Fri 06:47 Moscow - FR3.5: Practice for the mid-way race of the season is underway. It has been a long trek for the teams. The Carlin team's truck left its factory in Farnham for Moscow on Monday June 10th, for a journey via Latvia.

Fri 06:48 WRC - Italy: The service park is now emptying itself of mechanics and technicians as they head for the remote service in Sassari, 65 miles west of Olbia.

"Starting the event with an inflammation of the throat. Not feeling well, and have a fever as well. Hopefully medication ready at remote."

Fri 06:57 FR3.5 - Moscow: Pre-season favourite Antonio Felix da Costa is racing on a circuit he knows, having joined the series one round before the Moscow meeting last year.

The Portuguese is third in the standings on 71 points, and is attempting to bridge a 15-point deficit to Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup champion Stoffel Vandoorne. DAMS racer Kevin Magnussen leads the championship on 115 points.

Fri 06:58 WRC - Italy: Volkswagen Motorsport technical boss Francois-Xavier Demaison is doubling up as Latvala's rally engineer in Italy. Latvala's usual rally engineer Fabrice van Ertvelde is at home waiting to become a father - good luck with that!

Fri 07:00 FR3.5 - Moscow: "We obviously had a difficult time in some of the opening rounds, but the last event in Spa was very important in terms of improved pace and consistency," said da Costa. "Also [in terms of] not making mistakes, we did better and had another podium.

"I think Moscow will be important as far as turning our championship around and confirming ourselves as title contenders."

Fri 07:03 Moscow - FR3.5. A red flag has interrupted the session after 10 minutes. AV Formula's Yann Cunha is the likely culprit as the remaining competitors have returned to the pits.

After Webb light-heartedly made a reference to some safety concerns in Moscow, Popov said he felt the same whenever he arrived at Heathrow. Popov said Webb subsequently deleted his comment from Twitter, and in a recent tweet on @oliverjameswebb made reference to the "beautiful views" from his Moscow hotel...

Fri 07:25 WRC - Italy: Massive traffic congestion in host town Olbia after a huge road accident. With the crews out for six stages and only stopping for remote service rather than returning to base, it shouldn't affect the event.

Debutant Will Buller was a repectable 19th for Zeta Corse. The FIA European Formula 3 racer was 1.5s off Sorensen's pace.

Fri 07:26 WRC - Italy: 2011 Monte Carlo Rally winner Bryan Bouffier stormed through with the fastest WRC3 time on SS1 by 33s, but then pulled up after the stage to attempt frantic repairs to a loose engine mount.

The WRC3 field is again entirely composed of entrants in the Citroen Top Driver one-make series.

Fri 07:31 WRC - Italy: For those just joining us, Acropolis winner Jari-Matti Latvala is already in trouble having lost two minutes with a front puncture on SS1.

He pondered stopping to change it but decided to press on. In the end, the time loss was about the same anyway.

Fri 07:48 WRC - Italy: Next stage starts at 10.46 local time, which is 9.46 in the UK and 8.46 GMT.

Fri 07:49 FR3.5 - Moscow: The session has been stopped. The clock continues to count down with less than three minutes remaining. Kevin Magnussen is fastest on 1m21.314s, ahead of DAMS team-mate Norman Nato and Da Costa.

Fri 07:50 FR3.5 - Moscow: Confirmation has come through from race control that the session will not be restarted.

Fri 08:01 FR3.5 - Moscow: A strong start for DAMS, as Magnussen and Nato take first and second in the opening FR3.5 practice session. Championship leader Magnussen's time of 1m21.314s was over half a second clear of Eurocup graudate Nato.

Pons Racing's Amberg was potentially involved in the red flag incident that cut the session short by three minutes.

Fri 08:18 FR3.5 - Moscow: Zeta Corse team boss Claudio Corradini told AUTOSPORT his latest signing Will Buller's new tyre run in FP1 was interrupted by the session's late red flag.

"We don't want to put any pressure on Will," said Corradini. "It's important he takes his time. Unfortunately, the red flag meant he wasn't able to get much of a feeling for new tyres. But you have to remember all of the other guys have done four rounds plus all the winter testing, so he did a good job."

Fri 08:26 FR3.5 - Moscow: Formula 3 racer Will Buller could see the positives after finishing FP1 in 25th on his FR3.5 debut for Zeta Corse.

"I am definitely comfortable in the car, but it's my first race weekend and also my first time in Russia," said Buller, who replaces Carlos Sainz Jr at the Italian team.

"The track has a lot of corners so there's quite a bit to get used to, but I'm sure there's definitely much more [performance] to come."

Fri 08:42 WRC - Italy: SS2 is only minutes away in Sardinia.

Sebastien Ogier has taken an early lead ahead of Mikko Hirvonen and Evgeny Novikov, while Jari-Matti Latvala has already lost two minutes with a puncture.

Robert Kubica is blitzing the field in WRC2, already half a minute clear of his nearest rival, VW protege and former Intercontinental Rally Challenge frontrunner Sepp Wiegand.

The ZEOD RC, which has been designed by DeltaWing creator Ben Bowlby - Nissan's new head of motorsport innovation - will trial electric technologies with a view to creating an all-electric LMP1 in the future.

No surprise it looks like, erm, a DeltaWing.

Fri 09:06 WRC - Italy: Minor impact for Elfyn Evans on SS2, bit of damage to a wheel but tyre stays intact. He is second fastest of the cars through so far, 14s behind Michal Kosciuszko.

Fri 09:10 WRC - Italy: Speaking of Kosciuszko, he's another driver in a different car this weekend.

The Pole had planned a full year in Motorsport Italia's Mini, but after a troubled start to the season in which 10th in Monte Carlo was followed by 14th in Sweden then three straight retirements, his backers had a rethink.

Kosciuszko is now in a customer Ford for a limited programme over the remaining rounds.

And that may well mean the end of the Mini John Cooper Works WRC in the world championship with no sign of Prodrive's example reappearing. A sad end to a programme that showed so much promise early on.

Fri 09:31 WRC - Italy: M-Sport confirms that Novikov and co-driver Ilka Minor were unhurt in the crash, which happened just 200 metres into SS2.

Fri 09:46 WRC - Italy: Robert Kubica is having an outstanding morning in WRC2.

On stage two he added another 23s to his lead over Sepp Wiegand and is now 55s ahead.

Now remember Kubica's Citroen is an RRC and Wiegand's Skoda is an S2000, so that's a slight technical advantage for the Pole.

Their levels of gravel rallying experience aren't too different as German Wiegand grew up as an asphalt ace.

But Wiegand has more overall rallying experience than Kubica and benefits from VW patronage.

Fri 09:54 WRC - Italy: Should also add that Kubica was eighth fastest overall on SS2 in his WRC2 spec car...

Fri 09:57 WRC - Italy: AUTOSPORT was about to type out the points permutations of Kubica's WRC2 title chances... but that might be tempting fate after just two stages of a very tough rally, hadn't it?

Let's hold off on that till Sunday.

Fri 10:03 WRC - Italy: PG Andersson is back in World Rally Car action this week, and for another five rounds, in a Ford supplied by Ukraine's Alex Tamrazov, who Andersson has been driver coaching of late.

Andersson's return got off to a tough start though, as he got a puncture on SS1, leaving him without any spares and slightly spooked.

He was back in 14th after SS2, but is fastest of the early SS3 runners right now.

Don't underestimate Andersson when he's up to speed, though. He won the Junior WRC title twice in the 2000s and had some storming underdog drives with Suzuki's shortlived factory WRC programme.

Now it's lunch that's on the Norwegian's mind as he tweets this picture of Ford chef Mick's remote kitchen at service.

Fri 10:09 FR3.5 - Moscow: Pons Racing's Zoel Amberg was indeed the cause of the final red flag that curtailed the opening free practice session. However, the Swiss was cheered by sixth fastest time, after a tough start to the season in which he has failed to register a point.

"I was pushing and braked a bit too late," said Amberg. "I went into the gravel, but there was no major damage done. I think the team discorvered some set-up problems after the last race at Spa, so perhaps, finally, we can have a better weekend."

Fri 11:25 WRC - Italy Cars just leaving remote service in Sassari. Elfyn Evans looks more relaxed heading out than he did coming in.

The Welshman admitted his World Rally Car debut had been even tougher than he’d expected.

"There was so much loose on the roads," he said, "I couldn't find any grip and when the car's moving around underneath you at those speeds it’s not good. I need to find some confidence."

Fri 11:26 WRC - Italy Rally leader Sebastien Ogier felt his VW Polo R WRC might have been a bit too soft for the morning, otherwise he's happy. He admitted he didn't push as hard as he might have done on the third stage… but he was still fastest.

Fri 11:29 WRC - Italy Jari-Matti Latvala says he was unlucky to get his first stage puncture. He thought about stopping and changing, but the WRC 2 cars only have one minute gaps.

"If we had fallen behind them then we could have had a lot of dust and lost even more time," said the seventh-placed Finn.

Fri 11:31 WRC - Italy Runaway WRC 2 leader Robert Kubica said he was cross with himself for a third-stage spin which cost time. The Pole had, for the first time, put new tyres on the front of the car while leaving worn rubber on the rear.

"Maybe I should have tried this for the first time in a test," he told AUTOSPORT, "it was a bit stupid."

The rear of his Citroen DS3 RRC was showing slight damage, but Kubica said it was driving straight.

Fri 11:31 FR3.5 - Moscow: There's a slight lull in activity as the session reaches the mid-way mark; only seven cars are on track.

Marco Sorensen moved to top of the timing screens shortly after the session resumed from the interruption caused by Jazeman Jafaar. The Dane's time of 1m21.405s has edged out Arthur Pic by 0.040s.

Fri 11:53 FR3.5 - Moscow: The DAMS cars of Norman Nato and Kevin Magnussen have moved into second and third behind da Costa.

Marlon Stockinger has jumped into fourth spot for the Lotus branded Gravity-Charouz team.

A lap of the Moscow Raceway is relatively short compared to other circuits on the World Series by Renault calendar, but the session is proving extremely competitive. The first 22 cars are covered by a second.

Fri 11:55 WRC - Italy: If anybody was in any doubt about just how hot it is in Sardinia, AUTOSPORT's iPhone has wilted.

Fri 12:03 FR3.5 - Moscow: Antonio Felix da Costa said he was looking to up his championship challenge entering round six at Moscow, and the Portuguese has delivered a strong start to the weekend by setting the fastest time in the second collective test.

Norman Nato repeated his morning position of second, but the Frenchman took inter-team honours at DAMS by finishing ahead of Kevin Magnussen.

Marlon Stockinger was an impressive fourth, edging out Will Stevens and Nigel Melker.

Fri 12:07 FR3.5 - Moscow: The margins between the leading runners in Friday afternoon's second practice session have been supremely tight.

Pacesetter da Costa was 0.048s faster than FR2.0 graduate Nato, who in turn was 0.071s faster than third-placed Kevin Magnussen. The top-23 runners were within a second of each other.

Fri 12:11 WRC - Italy: Here's a look at the damage Robert Kubica did to his Citroen with that high-speed spin and rear impact on SS3.

It didn't slow him much, he still leads WRC2 by 50 seconds.

Fri 12:26 WRC - Italy: Ogier is only one tenth of a second quicker than Hirvonen on SS4, but says he's taking it easy and driving in the middle of the road.

And it's only Friday afternoon...

Fastest man on the stage was actually Thierry Neuville.

The M-Sport man took six seconds out of Dani Sordo as he chases the fourth-placed Citroen having lost a little time with a spin this morning. They're now 2.4s apart.

"It was just a good run," he says. "I feel very comfortable in the car, especially when the grip is high - then I know I can go fast without doing mistakes.

"We haven't taken risks. It's a very clear run. I feel like I'm driving on a circuit."

Fri 13:27 WRC - Italy: Neuville emerges with another stage win, while Ogier's lead blossoms to half a minute as Hirvonen comes through with a slow time that leaves him only 2.1s ahead of Ostberg, and with Neuville closing in too.

Fri 13:30 WRC - Italy: Robert Kubica marches on. His WRC2 lead is now up to 1m09s.

This was the stage on which he mangled his Citroen's rear end this morning, and he admitted he had some more close calls.

"We were a bit lucky," he giggles. "I still have a lot of things to learn in rallying!"

Fri 13:50 FR3.5 - Moscow: Friday pacesetter Antonio Felix da Costa tells AUTOSPORT that he could have gone even quicker if he had got the most out of the marginal (by FR3.5 standards) tyres:

"We weren't really expecting the tyres to go off like that," he said. "I think it's something we missed - my first lap was not too good. But our car is strong. The key will be just to nail a lap."

Fri 14:23 Le Mans: Today at Le Mans there has been zero track action, but some interesting words from the teams as the paddock has gone press conference-crazy.

Fri 14:24 Some WTCC news: the field for next weekend's Porto street races is up to a season-high 25 as Campos runs three SEATs and Tom Boardman returns.

Fri 14:26 Le Mans: Toyota has never won the 24 Hours here, but did claim one accolade earlier today; that of having procured the longest table in history to sit its drivers and top team staff down at during its pre-race press conference.

And although AUTOSPORT earlier pledged not to stoke excitement about Kubica's title prospects when this rally still has a long way to go, we couldn't help noticing that championship leader Abdulaziz Al Kuwari is only fourth right now.

Fri 15:04 FR3.5 - Moscow: Oli Webb was fastest for quite a while in practice two, but slipped back to eighth in the end.

“It is so close," said Webb. "We’re just missing 0.3s off P1, and I made an error in the last corner which we know cost me two tenths.

"We turned up here with slightly more worn tyres than the opposition, because of a good outing last time, so I wasn’t too worried about where we finished in FP1.

"As soon as I put on the new tyres we found 2.5s, they make a massive difference around here."

Fri 15:09 WRC - Italy: For a hint of just how heavy that Novikov crash was, have a browse of this spectator's video...

Fri 15:14 FR3.5 - Moscow: Championship challenger Stoffel Vandoorne’s relative lack of pace on new tyres in the second collective test is being investigated by his Fortec Motorsport team. The 2013 double winner was fourth fastest in the morning before dropping to 15th in the afternoon.

Fortec engineer Paul Heath told AUTOSPORT, "Everything was fine for Stoffel in the first session, it was just when he put the new tyres on in the afternoon that the performance didn’t come. The early indications are that it was the tyres, as it’s very unusual for him not to be up there."

Fortec team boss Jamie Dye was not unduly concerned by the issue. "We're investigating it now," said Dye, "but Stoffel’s got a great head on him, so I am sure he’ll be right up there in qualifying."

Fri 15:15 WRC - Italy: First car, Citroen Abu Dhabi driver Khalid Al Qassimi, is through the second run of Monte Lerno. The DS3 WRC driver reported a moment on the asphalt section in the middle of the stage.

Fri 15:16 WRC - Italy: Report that P-G Andersson has stopped on SS6. The Swede's Fiesta RS WRC has been running with a broken rear driveshaft since SS4.

Fri 15:25 WRC - Italy: Elfyn Evans continues to level his unbelievably steep learning curve with another solid run through SS6. Qatar M-Sport's Welshman admitted he'd cooked the brakes on the first half of the stage.

Andreas Mikkelsen ran out of grip for the last eight kilometres in his factory Polo R WRC.

"I used them too much on the first two stages," said the Norwegian.

Fri 15:29 WRC - Italy: Mads Ostberg reports a lot of oversteer from his Fiesta RS WRC. He also spun the Ford at the mid-point of the stage. The Norwegian has lost his position to a flying Thierry Neuville.

Fri 15:33 WRC - Italy: Thierry Neuville puts his afternoon pace down to Qatar M-Sport team's chilli and rice at lunchtime. Questionable... AUTOSPORT had the same for lunch, but our time from Sassari back to Olbia wasn't markedly quicker!

Fri 15:35 WRC - Italy: Cracking time from rally leader Sebastien Ogier who goes fastest in SS6. The Frenchman is the master at saving his tyres and he's done it again. He now leads by 42.4 seconds.

Fri 15:36 FR3.5 - Moscow: Jazeman Jafaar's driver coach Bruce Jouanny explained that the Carlin racer suffered an off at Turn 13 in the second collective test, which caused the session to be red-flagged.

"Jazeman was looking very strong on old tyres this morning," said Jouanny.

"But unfortunately he lost some track time by going into the gravel, so perhaps there’s still a little more work to do.

"He did a very good race at Monaco, finishing on the podium, and we've done a lot of preparation for this weekend, so let's see what happens tomorrow."

Fri 15:38 WRC - Italy: With Ogier moving further ahead, the scrap for a Sardinian second is really hotting up. Just 18 seconds separate Mikko Hirvonen, Thierry Neuville, Mads Ostberg and Dani Sordo going into the final two stages of the day.

Fri 15:39 FR3.5 - Moscow: Jouanny's own driving ambitions this season have been put on hold. The former British Formula 3 race winner, who is in his sixth season working with FR3.5 racer Jafaar, has only contested one race this year. The Roquefort-based Frenchman took a class win in the Bathurst 12 hours driving a Peugeot RCZ.

Fri 15:46 WRC - Italy: Robert Kubica whops his WRC 2 rivals to the tune of a second per kilometre through Monte Lerno. The Citroen DS3 RRC's lead is fast approaching two minutes over Sepp Wiegand. The factory Skoda driver admitted he had a strange feeling with his Fabia in SS6.

Wiegand said: "I don't know if I have a puncture, but the car was a little bit crazy."

Kubica was catching Wiegand towards the end of the stage and suffering in his dust.

Fri 15:46 FR3.5 - Moscow: Muscovite Mikhail Aleshin experienced little in the way of a home advantage in Friday afternoon's second collective test at the Moscow Raceway.

After a promising sixth fastest time in the opening session, the Tech 1 racer slumped to 22nd.

"I put a different set-up on in the afternoon compared to my team-mate [sixth-placed Nigel Melker], so we exactly know what's going on," said Aleshin. "Unfortunately it didn't work out; I had traffic and then picked up dirt on my tyres - just not very good at all.

"I have no more experience here than anyone else. I would love to do some driver coaching here, but there's not much opportunity for driving in Russia!"

Fri 15:51
AUTOSPORT has just had a very interesting chat with multiple Le Mans winner Dindo Capello, who is here in his capacity as an Audi ambassador.

The subject? A long reminisce about his time in Super Touring for Audi Sport Italia.

For the record, AUTOSPORT loves reminiscing about Super Touring.

(By the way, we couldn't find a picture of him in a Super Tourer, so here's one of his face instead).

Fri 15:55
Recap of today's biggest motorsport news:

Sebastien Ogier is dominating the WRC in Italy, while Thierry Neuville and Robert Kubica are making waves in his wake

Nissan has unveiled the DeltaWing-style electric car it will enter at Le Mans in 2014

Red Bull rising star Antonio Felix da Costa got his FR3.5 season back on course by going quickest in practice at Moscow Raceway

Fri 15:59 Rally Italy gets going again at 19.23 local time (18.23 UK, 17.23 GMT) and we'll have news from the service park before then, as well as updates from NASCAR's weekend on the road courses as that commences, and more from Le Mans and Moscow FR3.5.

Fri 16:23 This weekend NASCAR is all about road-racing. The Nationwide Series is at the gorgeous Road America, and the Sprint Cup field is at Sonoma.

Today is practice day for both series, with qualifying and the Nationwide race on Saturday, and the Cup race on Sunday.

Fri 16:28
It's the NASCAR Nationwide Series that gets going first, with practice at a currently damp Elkhart Lake circuit just a few minutes away.

Fri 16:31 NASCAR - Sonoma/Road America: This weekend both Villeneuve and Patrick will be at Sonoma in Cup.

The most notable 'ringer' in Nationwide is long-time Corvette Le Mans/American Le Mans man Johnny O'Connell, who is out for JR Motorsports while his old colleagues are racing in France.

AJ Allmendinger is in Penske's Nationwide car, while his sometime Champ Car rival Andrew Ranger (Canada's big IndyCar hope before James Hinchcliffe came along) is driving for NDS Racing.

Fri 16:44 You'll need two AUTOSPORT windows for the rest of the weekend.

Le Mans Live will be in operation for every second of the 24-hour race, which commences on Saturday.

Meanwhile its younger brother Race Centre Live takes care of the rest of the racing action from around the world, covering the WRC in Italy, FR3.5 in Russia, IndyCar at Iowa, NASCAR at Sonoma, the BTCC at Croft and Superstars at Zolder.

Fri 17:18
Some MotoGP news before the rallying resumes for the evening.

"Everything went as well as expected and now I am just resting my arm as much possible. The wrist shouldn't give me any problems now hopefully but we need a few more days to see whether the skin graft has taken."

If you're feeling brave, have a look at Smith's Twitter pictures of his injury and recovery, including this before and after... (warning: graphic images)

Fri 17:25 WRC - Italy: Stage seven in Sardinia is about to get underway.

This evening will feature two runs through the 13.55 kilometres of Gallura. The first should be in fading light, the second after dark.

Fri 17:37 NASCAR - Sonoma/Road America: NASCAR is willing to try racing in the rain on road courses, but Nationwide practice at Road America has been delayed by lightning.

Frankly that's fair enough.

Fri 17:41 WRC - Italy: In normal circumstances, you want to be as late in the running order as possible on a rally like Sardinia so others sweep the dust off the road for you.

But as day turns to night, that dust is likely to hang in the air, which could cause major visibility problems for leader Sebastien Ogier.

The Frenchman was concerned about that prospect, especially with two-minute gaps between cars starting, prior to the rally.

"I think night stages on gravel events are not so good, it's always a problem with the dust," said Ogier.

"We have to ask to get at least three minutes, it was terrible last time in Greece [in 2011]."

Fri 17:45 WRC - Italy: Speaking of the running order, since the advent of qualifying, rallies are trying increasingly inventive ways to jazz up the process of drivers selecting their starting spots.

In Italy, women in traditional Sardinian costumes held the numbers for drivers to pick. Mads Ostberg went about it in particularly polite fashion.

Fri 17:55 WRC - Italy: Setting sun through the dust is already making this stage a tough one.

That's not what Elfyn Evans needs in a World Rally Car he has little experience of. He takes it easy and loses 8s in his battle with Michal Kosciuszko, but keeping the car in one piece for Saturday is wise.

Fri 18:00 WRC - Italy: Mads Ostberg is quickest of the next batch of cars, taking a second back off team-mate Thierry Neuville.

Fri 18:05 WRC - Italy: Mikko Hirvonen adds a bit more of a cushion to his advantage over Neuville in their battle for second. The Citroen is 1.5s faster and the gap is now 6.2s.

"I came here in 2003 and this is exactly the stage that was used that time, and I love this kind of stage, it's such a great feeling to drive," he says.

"We still maybe have a chance for fifth place, so let's fight for that."

He is seventh right now, gaining on Mikkelsen.

Fri 18:18 WRC - Italy: Robert Kubica loses a lot of time. The WRC 2 cars are going into the stage just one minute apart, and in the setting sun that is causing huge dust problems.

The consolation for Kubica is that main rival Sepp Wiegand was even slower, but Abdulaziz Al Kuwari - first of the WRC 2 cars on the road - did not have that issue and is now second, 1m10s behind the Pole, who had been two minutes clear.

"We were driving 10km/h per hour and we couldn't see anything," said the disappointed Kubica.

Fri 18:22 WRC - Italy: The cars are now off to a regroup before tackling this stage again at 21.28 local time (20.28 UK, 19.28 GMT), by which time the dust will be accompanied by darkness.

Fri 19:14 WRC - Italy: This stage is going to be really tricky. Looking outside the press office window, it's not going to be completely dark for the first few cars. Half-light's a nightmare for a rally driver; constant indecision about whether it's better with the spotlights all on, just the bumper lights on, all off and just headlights on? And a distraction like that in a technical stage like Gallura is not what you need. There'll be some tales to tell in about 40 minutes...

Fri 19:16 WRC - Italy: And, in case you were wondering, it hasn't started raining. It's still positively boiling and very, very (very) dusty.

Fri 19:20 FR3.5 - Moscow: The weekend attendance at Moscow is anticipated to be in the region of 105,000. Alongside the regular World Series by Renault racecard, fans can expect to be entertained by David Coulthard. The 13-time grand prix winner is set to make his maiden demonstration run of the year in Red Bull's Formula 1 roadshow car.

Toro Rosso racer Daniel Ricciardo fulfilled similar duties this season at Motorland Aragon, while Alain Prost is pencilled in to break off from assisting with the development of Renault’s new turbocharged Formula 1 engine to make an appearance at Paul Ricard.

Fri 19:22 FR3.5 - Moscow: It might not quite rival the 'White Nights' of St Petersburg, but on the longest day of the year there is still eerily-good light at 23.00 in Moscow.

The Moscow Raceway stewards have announced that there will be 275 seconds use of the Drag Reduction System (DRS) in each FR3.5 race.

Fri 19:31 WRC - Italy: The final stage of day one is underway. Off into the darkness they go...

Fri 19:38 NASCAR - Sonoma/Road America: Both NASCAR's top series are now in action turning left and right.

Nationwide teams are starting to switch to dry set-ups at Road America, while Marcos Ambrose has just knocked Kurt Busch off the top spot in opening Sprint Cup practice at Sonoma.

Fri 19:41 WRC - Italy: Normally at the end of Friday, WRC drivers still have two days to go.

But Rally Italy is the latest rally to compact its schedule, so after today's eight-stage, 14-hour stint, the event concludes later on Saturday afternoon. A further eight stages will run tomorrow.

Fri 19:46 WRC - Italy: Mads Ostberg has come to a halt early on the stage. He was running fourth.

Fri 19:47 WRC - Italy: Elfyn Evans completes the final day and it's game on again in his fight with Michal Kosciuszko for ninth, taking 6.8s off the ex-Mini man and reducing the gap to 8.9s again.

Fri 19:48 WRC - Italy: Terrible news for Ostberg, he has rolled out of fourth place. Mads and co-driver Jonas Andersson are both unhurt.

That's the second M-Sport Ford to crash out after Evgeny Novikov's massive accident this morning.

Fri 19:54 WRC - Italy: It's been a very quiet rally for Dani Sordo so far. He drops further away from Thierry Neuville and admits that missing this rally last year (when he didn't contest a full programme) is hampering him in Italy.

Fri 20:44 That concludes Race Centre Live for Friday June 21, the day that Sebastien Ogier reasserted his World Rally Championship authority, but couldn't overshadow superb drives from Thierry Neuville, Jari-Matti Latvala and Robert Kubica.

Fri 20:48 Race Centre Live will resume at 5.45am GMT (6.45am UK) with all the action from Formula Renault 3.5 in Russia, the final day of WRC Rally Italy, plus practice and qualifying from IndyCar at Iowa, NASCAR Sprint Cup at Sonoma, the BTCC at Croft and Superstars at Zolder, while our sister service Le Mans Live will cover every moment of the legendary 24-hour race.

Sat 05:41
Good morning from AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live for Saturday June 22.

It's race morning at the Le Mans 24 Hours and the deciding day of Rally Italy.

Sat 05:43 WRC - Italy: First news of the morning in Sardinia is that Mads Ostberg will rejoin under Rally 2 following his Friday evening crash.

The team chopped a section of roll cage out of the car at 0100 this morning and had the job finished two hours later. Eight mechanics worked through the night to make it happen.

An M-Sport car has finished the last 164 WRC rounds in the points (since Monte 2002) and Malcolm Wilson said that's the closest it's come to ending that run...

The consensus on Friday from teams and competitors who attended last year's meeting is that the fit and finish of the circuit facilties has improved markedly. That's entriely to be expected, as the 2012 event was only the circuit's second international meeting after the FIA European Truck Racing Championship

The sun is breaking through some patches of early morning cloud. The forecast for the rest of the weekend is largely fine, although there is possibility of light rain on Sunday.

Sat 05:59 WRC - Italy: We're a few minutes away from the first stage of the morning going live. Eight more tests today to decide the event.

The big talking points will be how far Friday stars Thierry Neuville and Jari-Matti Latvala can progress. The Belgian is right on Mikko Hirvonen's exhaust fighting for second place, while Latvala has flown up to fifth after a puncture early on Friday.

Sat 06:04 FR3.5 Moscow: A mild scare for championship leader Kevin Magnussen earlier. The Dane ran off the road on the exit of Turn 3, but has recovered to second position behind Stoffel Vandoorne.

Sat 06:04 NASCAR - Sonoma: Marcos Ambrose and Clint Bowyer were fastest in the two Friday practice sessions for the Sprint Cup's first road course round of the season at Sonoma.

Juan Pablo Montoya, Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne were among the others looking rapid, while Denny Hamlin was first to find the barriers. His car will be repaired for qualifying.

For those following Jacques Villeneuve's progress, he was 30th in practice one and 29th in practice two.

Over at Road America, the Nationwide Series field is also in road mode. Former V8 Supercars man Owen Kelly was fastest on a practice day that began wet.

Sat 06:07 FR3.5 - Moscow The top of the timing screens is extremely fluid. Nigel Melker is on provisional pole from Antonio Felix da Costa and Marco Sorensen.

Sat 06:10 WRC - Italy: Monte Olia is underway. PG Andersson is first on the road after his Friday problems, followed by Mads Ostberg.

Sat 06:38 WRC - Italy: Jari-Matti Latvala is flying through SS9 and looks set to carve a big chunk out of Dani Sordo's advantage in their battle for fourth.

If he keeps up this pace, we might see Latvala in the podium fight before the rally is over.

Sat 06:54 WRC - Italy: Timing system is misbehaving again, both for round-the-world web viewers and in the service park.

We know that Mikko Hirvonen was quickest on SS9 and that Latvala will have gained on Sordo, but haven't got a reliable set of results yet or any indication of Neuville's time - and that's a fairly vital one given his battle with Hirvonen for second.

Sat 06:55 WRC - Italy: Meanwhile SS10 has got going and the first four cars are through. Mads Ostberg fastest so far.

Sat 06:57 WRC - Italy: Timing system is waking up. Looks like Neuville was second fastest on SS9 but still lost five seconds to the flying Hirvonen.

Sat 06:59 WRC - Italy: Mikko Hirvonen is reported by stage-end officials to have rolled out of second place early on SS10.

Sat 07:01 WRC - Italy: Hirvonen had started the morning with a commanding fastest time as he fought to secure second place from the flying Neuville, but it looks like his rally is over.

That gives Neuville a comfortable second place and makes the prospect of a Latvala podium look very likely.

Sat 07:04 WRC - Italy: Latvala takes a couple more seconds out of Sordo on SS10. "I was waiting for that," Sordo admits. "It's very slippery in some places and I don't feel very comfortable."

Sat 07:05 Time for a second AUTOSPORT screen! Le Mans 24 Hours warm-up is underway on our sister service Le Mans Live.

Sat 07:09 WRC - Italy: Still waiting for proper times from both this morning's stages but we think the gap between new third place man Dani Sordo and his pursuer Jari-Matti Latvala is under 15s now with six stages to go.

Sebastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville are comfortable in first and second.

Sat 07:10 WRC - Italy: Ogier reckons Hirvonen might manage to continue. He says the Citroen is stuck off the road at the first hairpin, but didn't see any particularly severe damage as he passed.

Sat 07:16 Superstars - Zolder: Free practice one is underway here in Belgium, and it's local boy (and Superstars first-timer) Laurens Vanthoor leading the way for Audi 10 minutes into the session.

Sat 07:23 WRC - Italy: So much for Mikko's good mood first thing this morning. He was well up for the fight and was sensational on Monte Olia. Bit of a concern about the location of service – Citroen's just a hop, skip and a jump from the harbourside...

Sat 07:43 Superstars - Zolder: Great start to Laurens Vanthoor's Superstars career as he goes fastest in free practice one. Audi Sport Italia looking strong with Gianni Morbidelli making it an RS5 1-2.

Sat 07:53 WRC - Italy: The swap for third has happened. As Jari-Matti Latvala takes what looks like it will be another stage win, Dani Sordo spins and struggles to restart for a few seconds.

That puts Latvala up to third, 13s ahead of Sordo.

Sat 07:57 WRC - Italy: Rain-watch... big black clouds gathering on the mountains just beyond the service park. There has been some very light rain in the stages. There's a storm coming over from Africa, apparently.

Sat 08:06 WRC - Italy: Hirvonen's fastest time this morning was his 250th in the WRC. His 251st might have to wait a while.

Sat 08:28 WRC - Italy: Robert Kubica's WRC2 lead is back up to over a minute.

Nearest rival Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari is furious that he is going onto the stages just one minute behind Kubica while the Pole has a two-minute gap after the last of the World Rally Cars.

Sat 08:32 FR3.5 - Moscow: Polesitter Stoffel Vandoorne was surprised by the margin to third-placed championship leader Kevin Magnussen, who has subsequently been stripped of his two fastest laps for blocking.

Vandoorne also welcomed the cooler temperatures that are expected for this afternoon’s race.

"Sure, we were a bit surprised that we had such a big gap to P3," said Vandoorne. "Yesterday was amazing. Five tenths off was P15, today it was P3. But it is only good for us. Antonio [Felix da Costa, who starts second] and I are really close.

"I need a good start, as here it is so difficult to overtake, then it will be about managing the tyres. I think the temperature is quite a bit lower than Friday. That will make it easier because yesterday they just fell off a cliff."

Sat 08:33 BTCC - Croft: Free practice one is underway, and the works Hondas lead the field out of the pits.

Jake Hill is coming out for his first laps in an official BTCC session too, driving Motorbase's S2000 Ford Focus.

Sat 08:35 BTCC - Croft: The track is a tad damp in places, but the rain is staying away and there is a strong wind.

Sat 08:37 BTCC - Croft: As usual at this stage in a BTCC season, the title battle is finely poised.

Matt Neal, Andrew Jordan and Jason Plato are all over each other, and reigning champion Gordon Shedden is not far behind.
Championship standings after 12 of 30 rounds:

Series debutant Laurens Vanthoor was quickest in FP1 for Audi Sport Italia. The result was a lot to do with local knowledge; as the team's PR man put it, he can see the track from his breakfast table. In other words, he grew up very close to the circuit.

Sat 09:18 BTCC - Croft: It turns out the red flag in free practice one was to retrieve Sam Tordoff's driveshaft from Tower! Not the best start to his weekend...

Sat 09:27 Superstars - Zolder: Free practice two is now underway at Zolder.

Sat 09:43 WRC - Italy: The closest battle in the top 10 when the final loop starts will be the fight for seventh between Michal Kosciuszko and Elfyn Evans.

For Kosciuszko, the chance to show what he can do following his frustrating stint in the Motorsport Italia Mini is welcome, but a lot of fans - particularly in Wales - would love to see WRC Academy champion Evans, son of the legendary Gwyndaf, as high as seventh on his top-class debut.

There is just six seconds between Kosciuszko and Evans with four stages to go, and they've been inseparable all weekend.

Sat 09:48 FR3.5 - Moscow: We're not far away from the start of the first Formula Renault 3.5 race of the weekend at Moscow Raceway.

Championship contenders Stoffel Vandoorne and Antonio Felix da Costa share the front row, and the man they're chasing in the points - Kevin Magnussen - is way back in 17th after being penalised for blocking da Costa and Carlos Huertas.

In other intrigue, what can Formula 3 graduate Will Buller do from fourth on the grid on his debut. Buller is the latest occupant of what is turning out to be Zeta Corse's 'star car'.

Sat 09:51 A reminder that while Race Centre Live focuses on everywhere except Le Mans, our sister service Le Mans Live will be up and running for all the build-up and all 24 hours of race action on sportscar racing's biggest day of the year.

This is what his Eurotech Honda looked like to you if you were just waking up from sleeping in the woods and wondered what the noise was.

Sat 09:54 FR3.5 - Moscow: DAMS general manager Francois Sicard has said he felt the two penalties for blocking handed to the team's championship leader Kevin Magnussen in Saturday morning's qualifying session were "too harsh".

"As soon as Kevin got back to the pits he said he'd had a problem with Antonio," said Sicard. "It was completely unintentional, but he didn't have time to get out of the way. For sure he impeded Antonio, he tried to get out of the way but it was too late. Regarding Huertas, he didn’t see anything, so Kevin is very annoyed.

"If we were penalised once we would have been P9, now we're P17. Kevin always says whenever he has done a mistake, he's very honest, and he has never been involved in bad standards of driving on the track this year, so we think two penalties is harsh."

Sat 09:59 Superstars - Zolder - Free practice two: Tonio Liuzzi goes fastest in FP2 here at Zolder. He finished half a second clear of Laurens Vanthoor, who is shaping up to be a real surprise package on debut.

"I'm really comfortable," he told AUTOSPORT after topping the S2000 runners in first practice. "I know the the team really well and it's nice to be back at the top of something.

"I got used to the car really quickly and we're absolutely going for class wins."

Sat 10:20 Superstars - Zolder: The handicap weights for Zolder are as follows:

Berton +40kg
Biagi +40kg
Liuzzi +30kg
Morbidelli +10kg

The good news for Morbidelli (and Vanthoor) is that Audi has been given a break in terms of balance of performance. The RS5 is now 20kg lighter, and doesn't have to run its 35mm restrictor.

Sat 10:23 FR3.5 - Moscow: Lap 11, leader Vandoorne is the only man lapping in the 1m22s. The Belgian's lead has extended to 2.946s over da Costa.

The battle for fifth, held by Will Buller who is under threat from Andre Negrao, is the closest among the lead group.

Sat 10:26 WRC - Italy: A civilised midday break for the crews in Sardinia ahead of the final loop. The first of the deciding four stages is off at 14.25 local time (13.25 BST, 12.25 GMT)

Sat 10:28 BTCC - Croft: James Cole's Team Hard Vauxhall Insignia appears to be having some major engine work done ahead of second practice. The team has been frantically working around the TOCA unit, which has been taken out of the chassis.

It's been a tough first season in the BTCC for Cole, who has had a lack of testing and more than his fair share of bad luck already.

Sat 10:30 FR3.5 - Moscow: Fourth-placed Will Stevens is the fastest driver in the top six, and is closing in on Nigel Melker for third.

Sat 10:37 FR3.5 - Moscow: A nasty crash has just occurred at Turn 9. Lucas Foresti has been pitched at high-speed upside down into the gravel after clashing wheels with Nikolay Martsenko. Both drivers exited their cars unaided.

Sat 10:47 Superstars - Zolder: Here's a full recap of events from practice in Belgium this morning, as local star Laurens Vanthoor announced he will be a threat for victory on his debut.

Sat 11:00 BTCC - Croft: Free practice two is next up. Will Andrew Jordan's Eurotech Honda set the pace again?

Superstars - Zolder: Neither Thomas Biagi nor Luigi Ferrara set a timed lap in FP2. Would appear that the Roma Racing Team is fitting a new engine to Ferrara's C63 Coupe, while most of the action in the Romeo Ferraris pits seemed to be focused on the back end of Biagi's C63.Sat 11:06
Luckily for both teams there is a decent gap between FP2 and qualifying. Still three and a half hours until qualifying starts.

Sat 11:08 BTCC - Croft: Off we go for session two, just as rain has started to fall.

Sat 11:10 BTCC - Croft: James Cole will miss this session as his Team Hard squad continues to sort the engine on his Vauxhall Insignia.

Sat 11:16 BTCC - Croft: The rain seems set to prevent people going quicker than this morning's times. Rob Collard is fastest so far in his WSR BMW, but is almost four seconds slower than Andrew Jordan's FP1 best.

At least this gives the track a chance to dry as the laps have been well off the dry times set this morning.

Sat 11:36 BTCC - Croft: We're still waiting for the session to restart.

In the meantime, Rob Collard is enjoying his WSR BMW around here.

"The car's going very well this morning and I like the unpredictable conditions," he said.

"I hope it stays like this for the races."

Sat 11:36 Superstars - Zolder: Thomas Biagi confirms to AUTOSPORT that the problem with his C63 is rear suspension-related. Something seemed to break as he ran over a kerb. The car will definitely be ready for qualifying.

Gianni Morbidelli has also had some problems. His Audi Sport Italia team are currently fiddling with the rear diff. It will either be fixed or replaced in time for qualifying.

Sat 11:38 BTCC - Croft: Barrier repairs are required after Morgan's crash, so the session has been frozen.

The drivers will get 15 more minutes after lunch.

Sat 11:41 BTCC - Croft: Adam Morgan and his car have returned from their crash at Clervaux.

"I just locked the brakes into the first corner," admitted Morgan. "I pumped the brakes but they wouldn't come off and we hit the barriers.

Championship leader Pierre Gasly has extended a 3.6s lead over Oliver Rowland on lap four. Both drivers topped their qualifying groups.

Sat 11:54 FR2.0 Eurocup - Moscow: Three drivers, D'Agosto, Pakari and Panis have been under investigation for a jump start.

Aurelien Panis and Ignazio D'Agosoto will have to serve drive-through penalties.

Up front, Gasly is romping away from the field. The Frenchman enjoys a 4.7s lead on lap 10. Rowland appears comfortable in second, 2.4s clear of Steijn Schothorst.

Guilherme Silva has spun out of the race at Turn 10.

Sat 12:03 WRC - Italy: Just under half an hour from the start of Sardinia's deciding loop.

It's a big afternoon for Thierry Neuville with a career-best result in sight, and for Elfyn Evans. The Welshman would love a points finish on his WRC debut but pushing to triumph in his rally-long dice with seventh-placed Michal Kosciuszko must be tempting.

Sat 12:08 And yes, AUTOSPORT realises that with Le Mans on, Race Centre Live might be quieter than its big brother service this weekend, but keep both windows open and flick across to keep up with WRC, BTCC, IndyCar, NASCAR, FR3.5 and Superstars when there's a long yellow, yeah?

We've got a picture of an American action sports hero trying to sell ice cream to a man in a tiger suit coming up later, for instance.

Sat 12:16 FR3.5 - Moscow: Here's the full story of how Stoffel Vandoorne slashed Kevin Magnussen's points lead with a dominant race one performance.

Sat 12:23 BTCC - Croft: This is why second practice has been interrupted by an early lunchbreak...

Adam Morgan emerged in much better shape than the barrier his Toyota rearranged.

Sat 12:25 Superstars - Zolder: Laurens Vanthoor is making sure his debut weekend is a busy one. As well as driving the Audi Sport Italia RS5, he's also sharing the MTM Audi R8 with Thomas Schoffler in the GT Sprint races.

The pair are starting from what is effectively pole position for race one, which is about to get underway. I say effectively pole, because GT Sprint has been combined with the Dutch Supercar Challenge this weekend. That means the Audi starts fifth on the road.

The front row, meanwhile, features a McLaren MP4-12, and a Volvo S60. Together at last...

Sat 12:36 WRC - Italy: With the first cars onto SS13 out of 16, here's how the top 10 stands:

"I'm sorry for him because it's not nice," says Sordo, who admits he is off the pace. "I need to improve myself a bit and also improve the car. Now he's out we are OK in fourth place."

Sat 13:24 WRC - Italy: Another consequence of Mikkelsen's retirement is that Elfyn Evans is now up to a potential sixth place!

Sat 13:26 WRC - Italy: Mikkelsen's shunt was not a huge one, he simply went wide off the road and broke his VW's suspension. But that's fifth place, and possibly fourth, gone. And it's his birthday too.

The last lap was enlivened by a heated battle between Erik Janis and Kelvin Snoeks. The incident that led to Janis snatching the final place on the podium is under investigation.

Sat 13:41 WRC - Italy: Powerstage ahead so time to think about who needs the bonus points.

Jari-Matti Latvala is currently second in the standings behind VW team-mate Sebastien Ogier, 52 points adrift. With Ogier set to win, Latvala could do with the extras to stop the Frenchman getting too far away. It's also going to pull Latvala much further clear of Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen.

If Thierry Neuville picks up anything from the powerstage, he'll inch ahead of Loeb into third in the standings, as well as increasing his advantage over Dani Sordo - and charging well clear of his M-Sport team-mates Mads Ostberg and Evgeny Novikov.

Assuming Neuville completes the next two stages safely, he's on course for his third podium in five rallies and fifth top-five finish in seven rounds this year.

Sat 13:46 WRC - Italy: By the way, the powerstage doesn't have to be the final stage... and this time it isn't. After fighting for the bonus score on SS15 Monti di Ala, the crews will go to SS16 Coiluna-Loelle to complete the rally.

Sat 13:56 BTCC - Croft: Practice at Croft was a frustrating experience as rain hit for practice two and the session was first paused for an hour then abandoned altogether due to a barrier-mangling crash by Adam Morgan.

Before all that, Andrew Jordan went very quickly. Here's the full round-up from the morning:

"Thierry is driving quite fast so we have to drive fast to beat him," says a very happy Ogier.

Sat 14:15 Busy time approaching on Race Centre Live: qualifying for the BTCC and Superstars imminent, final WRC stage half an hour away, and not long till the American action starts with our first IndyCar and NASCAR sessions on the day.

Sat 14:28 FR3.5 - Moscow: Zeta Corse team boss Claudio Corradini continued his glowing appraisal of Will Buller after the County Down racer picked up fifth place on his maiden FR3.5 outing for the Italian-registered, Valencia-based team.

"One thing you have to remember is that today was the first time Will ran with full fuel, and that we weren't allowed to do any practice starts in testing on Friday," stressed Corradini.

"If you take that into consideration, his first lap was very mature. We've also seen other drivers get in the car and struggle physically, but he has done a good job."

Sat 14:32 FR3.5 - Moscow: Buller explained that a lack of familiarity with the FR3.5 car led him to adopting a more cautious approach than he would have liked on the opening lap.

“If I was in my F3 car, which I am used to, I wouldn’t have let [eventual third place finisher Nigel] Melker make that move,” said Buller.

“That’s why bit I was a bit cautious.. But generally, it has been a quite a good first race in the car. The team performed well, it’s a shame that my management of the DRS just wasn’t quite right at the beginning of the race, then with the safety car I wasn't sure if it was being deployed or not and I backed off a little bit too much.

"There’s a few things like race pace I need to work on but I think we can improve tomorrow."

Sat 14:34 BTCC - Croft: Neal snatches pole back with 1m24.630s.

Sat 14:36 BTCC - Croft: And Shedden gets a lap in to go third. It's a Honda Civic 1-2-3 at the moment, then the MGs of Plato and Tordoff.

Sat 14:38 BTCC - Croft: Now Plato moves to pole with 1m24.613s. Three tenths covers the top four.

Sat 14:40 Superstars - Zolder: Qualifying is underway here at Zolder. Track conditions are greasy, so everything is set up for an Audi pole.

Sat 14:41 BTCC - Croft: Shedden improves to third. He set two purple sectors, but lost out in the final sector.

Sat 14:42 WRC - Italy: Late drama in WRC 3 as leader Stephane Consani battles to sort electrical catastrophes in his Citroen at the end of the penultimate stage.

Sat 14:45 BTCC - Croft: Jordan improves but manages to lose fourth to Colin Turkington, who pops the WSR BMW up onto row two with 5 min to go.

Sat 14:49 Superstars - Zolder: Pole contender Laurens Vanthoor has stopped on circuit somewhere without setting a time. Would seem his session is done and he'll be starting at the back tomorrow.

Sat 14:51 WRC - Italy: The final stage of Sardinia is live. Sebastien Ogier and Robert Kubica on the cusp of crushing outright and WRC 2 victories respectively.

Sat 14:58 BTCC - Croft: We're back under way and it's a mad dash for the last four minutes of the session. The target time is Jason Plato's 1m24.613s.

Sat 15:00 IndyCar - Iowa: Looks like a couple of days worth of uncomfortable conditions await the IndyCar field at Iowa, with temperatures of 32.C at 90 per cent humidity forecast for today, and similar temperatures tomorrow with thunderstorms thrown in for good measure. Indy Lights are currently opening proceedings with their first practice session.

Sat 15:01 WRC - Italy: First car to the finish is PG Andersson on his WRC return. It's been a troubled rally for the AT Ford with multiple problems, and he looks set to be classified 13th or 14th once the whole field is through.

Sat 15:05 WRC - Italy: Mads Ostberg finishes and will be eighth. This season isn't going as he planned.

Before Sardinia he declared it would be absolutely flat-out for the rest of the year after numerous disappointments, but he after crashing on Friday night in Italy, he admits keeping the car in one piece is good too.

Sat 15:06 WRC - Italy: After the first two splits of the final stage, Kosciuszko is on course to beat Evans to sixth - by just one tenth of a second!

Sat 15:07 WRC - Italy: By split four, Evans has pulled some time back, looks like the Welshman will just pip Kosciuszko... but the stage isn't over yet...

Sat 15:08 WRC - Italy: Evans finishes the stage. At the final split it looked like he would just keep sixth.

Sat 15:12 WRC - Italy: Martin Prokop takes fifth, his best result of 2013 so far.

He was still a long way behind the works cars, but his comfortable margin over Evans and Kosciuszko will be encouraging.

Sat 15:16 WRC - Italy: Jari-Matti Latvala reaches the finish and will be third. That's a very pleasing result after a puncture cost him two minutes within eight kilometres of the rally start on Friday morning.

"Overall, I wanted to win, but I think speed-wise I'm one more step forward," says Latvala, whose second place in the standings becomes more secure.

Sat 15:19 IndyCar - Iowa: Iowa has its own not-at-all-overcomplicated qualifying system based on a series of heat races. The time difference means that you'll miss it on Race Centre Live, but Ganassi team manager Mike Hull took to Twitter earlier this week to explain how it works, complete with a handy diagram.

Sat 15:47 IndyCar - Iowa: Green flag for the first IndyCar practice session. Actually this is the only practice session before qualifying and the heat races.

IndyCar - Iowa: Iowa is one of four consecutive ovals on the early-summer IndyCar schedule.Sat 16:04
Wins at Texas Motor Speedway and the Milwaukee Mile went to Helio Castroneves and Ryan Hunter-Reay respectively, and they're now edging clear in the championship.

Sat 16:04 IndyCar - Iowa: Just over 15 minutes into practice, and Marco Andretti is the current leader ahead of team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay. Not much is happening on the track, but there's a bit of news filtering out from the paddock that Panther Racing has split with chief engineer David Cripps.

Sat 16:24 IndyCar - Iowa: Yellows for track inspection, with Marco Andretti on top - his fastest lap was over 183mph, which is 3mph faster than anyone else has managed to go so far.

Sat 16:27 Tragic news from Le Mans. Aston Martin driver Allan Simonsen has died following a high-speed crash on lap four of the 24 Hours.

The mood in the press room has gone flat following the sad news coming out of Le Mans. This journalist has a lot of memories of Allan Simonsen being very fast in a Ferrari 360 GT in the Australian GT championship a few years ago.

Sat 16:41 IndyCar - Iowa: Top three in practice is still Andretti, Hunter-Reay and Newgarden. While we wait for something interesting to happen, here's the running order for the single-lap qualifying session. Remember, 'qualifying' only sets the fields for the heat races, not for the actual main race tomorrow:

Puerto Rican driver Gonzalez's session starts badly as he spins into the tyres at Turn 10.

Sat 18:09 NASCAR - Sonoma: There's going to be a red flag as Gonzalez has brought a lot of dust onto the circuit. Each group gets five minutes of track time to qualify.

Sat 18:13 Superstars - Zolder: Gianni Morbidelli's rain prayers were answered in Belgium today when slick conditions in qualifying allowed him to put his Audi back up front.

But while he secured pole, Formula 3 driver turned GT star and general local expert Laurens Vanthoor has to start last in the sister Audi. He had flown in practice on his Superstars debut but the car broke on him before he could set a qualifying time.

Sat 18:15 NASCAR - Sonoma: Only David Stremme and Justin Marks managed to set times before the stoppage. The clock has stopped while the clear-up takes place.

Sat 18:18 NASCAR - Sonoma: We're back underway to have another shot at deciding what is probably going to be the back few rows of the grid.

Sat 18:22 BTCC - Croft: It's been an eventful opening day in Yorkshire. Andrew Jordan set the early pace, before rain and a barrier-demolishing accident for Adam Morgan (who was unhurt) made practice two fairly pointless.

Then qualifying was squeezed into a four-minute shootout following a crash for Joe Girling, and it was former champion Colin Turkington who came out on top to give WSR's new NGTC BMW its first ever pole.

Sat 18:25 NASCAR - Sonoma: That first group is done, David Stremme was fastest with a 1m16.819s.

Next up are Cup's three midfield Davids: Reutimann, Ragan and Gilliland, plus the latter pair's Front Row team-mate Josh Wise, newcomer Alex Kennedy with Humphrey Smith Racing, and the return of Boris Said with FAS Lane.

Sat 18:30 Le Mans 24 Hours: Here's the latest from Le Mans, where Audi is currently in control.

Sat 18:45 NASCAR - Sonoma: With tyre drop-off considerable here, most drivers have been treating this like a one-lap shootout, but Johnson went for two, grabbed provisional pole, then tried another lap before easing off.

Order now is Johnson, Labonte, Villeneuve.

Patrick went 11th quickest, Stenhouse is 17th.

Sat 18:48 NASCAR - Sonoma: Johnson doubts his lap will hold up for the top 10 once the remaining four groups have been out.

The next is now on track: Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne.

Sat 18:50 NASCAR - Sonoma: Johnson wasn't wrong. First Kenseth, then Busch, then Edwards take provisional pole with comfortably faster laps as the first 1m15s of the session are produced.

Sat 18:57 WRC - Italy: Robert Kubica admits he told rally organisers he would walk away before day two unless he got a two-minute gap to the cars ahead in the starrt order.

All the WRC 2 runners were concerned about the one-minute gaps on Friday night, but only Kubica's situation was altered for Saturday.

Sat 18:59 NASCAR - Sonoma: Some very strong road racers in group six as Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and Paul Menard take to the circuit.

Bowyer's road course form has taken a big stride recently and he was fastest in one of Friday's practice sessions.

Sat 19:03 FR3.5 - Moscow: First race of the weekend was Formula Renault 3.5 in Russia.

Stoffel Vandoorne absolutely dominated, and with championship leader Kevin Magnussen struggling to recover from a qualifying blocking penalty that left him 17th on the grid, that closed the title fight right up.

A week ago they had a falling out at Dover, where Biffle declined to relinquish a dominant lead to drop back and try to dislodge rubbish stuck on Edwards' grill. Eventually the obstruction fell off by itself, but there was some disgruntled radio traffic beforehand.

Sat 19:13 WRC - Italy: Celebrations are underway in Sardinia, where Sebastien Ogier took his fourth WRC win of the year.

Thierry Neuville and Jari-Matti Latvala starred with charges to second and third, while Mikko Hirvonen crashed out of second on the final morning.

Sat 19:55 IndyCar - Iowa: Moments away from the start of the single-lap phase of qualifying here at Iowa. First driver out will be Simona de Silvestro. Conditions: hot, and very windy.

Sat 20:01 IndyCar - Iowa: Green flag, and de Silvestro heads out onto the track. Remember, this qualifying session sets the grids for this evening's heat races, which in turn decide the starting order for tomorrow.

Sat 20:03 IndyCar - Iowa: de Silvestro's 178mph effort was never going to be a threat, and indeed Tony Kanaan hits it out of the park immediately with a 183.713mph average.

Sat 20:11 IndyCar - Iowa: A third of the field have set their times, and Kanaan is still on top ahead of Oriol Servia and Scott Dixon. The top six from this session get a free pass into the 10-car heat race for pole later tonight.

Sat 20:15 IndyCar - Iowa: Will Power goes to P1 with a 184.240mph average. If you're in Europe and staying up late to watch Le Mans, you can also catch live streaming of the heat races on the official IndyCar website. It kicks off at 6:45pm US eastern time.

Sat 20:19 IndyCar - Iowa: Wow, that was fast. Helio Castroneves knocks Andretti off the top with an average of 185.687mph. The top four are all above the previous one-lap track record.

Sat 20:21 IndyCar - Iowa: ... and an awful lap from Ryan Hunter-Reay, who can only summon 177.966mph. Whatever changes they made to that car today, assume that they'll be un-changing them.

Sat 20:23 IndyCar - Iowa: As Dario Franchitti heads out onto the track, all of the top six places are occupied by Chevrolet-powered cars.

Sat 20:26 IndyCar - Iowa: Poor lap from Dario, who only manages a 178mph. Kimball, Hinchcliffe and Beatriz still to run, although there's talk that Beatriz will not post a time. Dale Coyne Racing was changing her engine earlier.

Sat 20:29 IndyCar - Iowa: Hinchcliffe goes fifth-fastest, bumping Ed Carpenter from sixth, and therefore an automatic place in heat race three. As expected, Beatriz's car is not on pitlane, so that's the end of the session.

Sat 20:39 NASCAR - Sonoma: Ambrose's pole shot was spoilt by a technical glitch just as he started the lap.

"It was pretty fraught really," he said.

"The car was really dialled in and we had a really good shot at pole, but the motor cut out coming up to the green flag. I lost momentum coming up to Turns 1 and 2. I had to really try to get my composure back.

"I can't believe how close to pole we still came."

Sat 20:41 NASCAR - Sonoma: Poleman McMurray thought he'd be near the front, but expected Ambrose and Montoya (who ended up only 13th) to blow him away.

"We were second and fifth in practice so consistently we had a really good car this weekend, so you know you have a chance," said McMurray.

"But Juan and Marcos are able to pull these crazy laps out when they need to."

Sun 09:49 Superstars - Zolder: Just 10 minutes until race one kicks off here in Belgium, and the rain has started to bucket down. That's great news for polesitter Gianni Morbidelli, as he's looking for his first win of the season in the four-wheel-drive Audi RS5.

There are two races today, and they're the seventh and eighth races of the season. The points are currently as follows:

Francesco Sini will start, but has been moved from 10th to the back of the grid after failing scrutineering yesterday (his Camaro was too wide). And Roberto Benedetti's Cadillac seems to have stopped on the way to the grid.

Sun 09:58 Superstars - Zolder: There will be two formation laps, and the track is damp, but not soaked. Will still be slippery, though.

Something to watch will be Laurens Vanthoor's progress through the field in the second 4WD Audi. He's done enough laps here to know where to pass, and he'll have the grip advantage.

Sun 09:59 Superstars - Zolder: Here's a very special mode of pitlane transport at Zolder.

Check out the exhaust!

Sun 09:59 FR3.5 - Moscow: The grid is assembled for race two. Stoffel Vandoorne is on pole position for the second time this weekend. The Belgian has a shot at leaving Moscow with the championship lead.

Current points leader Kevin Magnussen lines up third. Will Stevens joins Vandoorne on the front row - a great effort for the Briton who was stuck in the pits with a hydraulic/gearbox issue for much of this morning's qualifying session.

Sun 10:07 Superstars - Zolder: And we're racing at Zolder! Morbidelli managed to hold off the more powerful Mercs at the start, and looks strong in these greasy conditions.

Sun 10:07 FR3.5 - Moscow: Championship challenger Antonio Felix da Costa was travelling very slowly on lap three and is pitting for a change of nose.

Sun 10:10 Superstars - Zolder: Two laps in and Vanthoor is already up to sixth. The local boy can drive...

Sun 12:29 FR2.0 - Eurocup: After Stoffel Vandoorne's dominant performance in the preceding FR3.5 race, Oliver Rowland and Esteban Ocon have treated the Russian fans to a great duel in the Eurocup race.

Racing Steps-backed Rowland took victory by just 0.173s, having spent much of the final lap concentrating on his right rear-view mirror, waiting for a move which failed to materialise from ART Junior team driver Ocon.

Sun 12:30 The 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours is coming down to a 30-minute sprint in changeable weather after a late safety car.

Sun 12:39 Superstars - Zolder: Some reaction from the top three from this morning's first race...

Gianni Morbidelli (1st): It was a great race. I made a good gap at the start, and then in the second half of the race I could back off. I could hear some noises in the transmission so I was happy that the car was OK. It's a very important result for the championship.

Laurens Vanthoor (2nd): The car was great and I could use my track knowledge.

Luigi Ferrara (3rd): I've finished second a third already this year, now all that's missing is a win.

Sun 12:41 Superstars - Zolder: Audi has confirmed that it was a prop shaft problem that led to Vanthoor stopping on the cool-down lap after race one.

Polesitter Berton has been a race two specialist so far this season. He won the second race in both Brno and Slovakia. Can he make it a hat-trick? We'll know in a little over half an hour.

Sun 14:19 Superstars - Zolder: And we're green for race two. Huge start from Giammaria, who barges his way from third to the lead.

Tonio Liuzzi, meanwhile, arrived at turn one far too quickly and took a trip through the gravel. He's back on track, but in last place.

Sun 14:24 Superstars - Zolder: Vanthoor has already made his way to the front of the field. He's already finished second three times this weekend (twice in GT Sprint and once in Superstars), but it looks like a win is finally coming his way!

Sun 14:52 Superstars - Zolder: Crazy finish! Vanthoor loses heaps of time over the last three laps, and is passed by Morbidelli on the line. Second win of the weekend for Morbidelli, the fourth second place of the weekend for Vanthoor.

Sun 15:46 Iowa: IndyCar: Good morning from Iowa. Hear that noise outside? That's thunder, and it's been going all morning - as has the rain and lightning. Last word was that we're still on target for the race to start on schedule, but in the meantime, the conditions are proving a stern test for Iowan umbrellas and disposable ponchos.

Of the BMWs, Dynamics boss Steve Neal told AUTOSPORT: "It's their circuit this one, so they can have it, but all credit to Turkington."

Sun 15:54 BTCC - Croft: And the rain has returned, so tyre choice will be interesting again...

Sun 15:59 BTCC - Croft: Scratch that. AUTOSPORT has just taken a proper look outside and the track is drenched. Even if the rain stops, it would be a surprise to see people start on anything other than grooved rubber.

Sun 16:02 BTCC - Croft: The weather means the field will probably get two green flag laps so they can get a feel for the wet conditions.

Sun 16:06 BTCC - Croft: Gordon Shedden was the master of these conditions last year, on his way to the title, so it will be interesting to see what he can do from row four.

Sun 16:11 BTCC - Croft: Here's the full top 10 starting line-up on the reversed grid:

Two changes to the grid officially: Brian Vickers moves to the back because Jason Bowles qualified his Waltrip Toyota while Vickers was racing in Nationwide at Road America, and Victor Gonzalez Jr has switched to a back-up car.

That doesn't make any difference though as the reason Gonzalez needed a spare car was because he crashed in qualifying, so he was last anyway.

Sun 18:52 IndyCar - Iowa: The rain has cleared, the track is dry, the national anthem has been sung, and the command to start engines is coming shortly.

Sun 19:09 IndyCar - Iowa: What with this race being the Iowa Corn 250, your Iowa correspondent has just been handed a press release containing 'Corn Quick Facts'. If we have any yellows, prepare to learn something.

Sun 19:11 NASCAR - Sonoma: As it's our first Cup road course race of the season, fancy a rundown of which current drivers have won on road courses in Cup the past?

All except Ambrose (a double winner at Watkins Glen) have got at least one win at the-track-formerly-known-as-Sears-Point.

Sun 19:13 IndyCar - Iowa: Green flag! It's a clean start, and James Hinchcliffe has jumped Will Power for the lead.

Sun 19:15 NASCAR - Sonoma: Road courses mean road course 'ringers'.

Old favourites and Chevy veterans Boris Said and Ron Fellows are out for FAS Lane and Circle Sport respectively, but the highest-qualifying interloper was 1997 Formula 1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve in 22nd for Phoenix Racing.

On his last NASCAR appearance in Nationwide at Road America last year, Villeneuve famously punted Danica Patrick off the road on the final lap. She starts 31st today.

Also in trouble is Bobby Labonte, pitting with a radiator issue, while Jacques Villeneuve is reporting gearshift issues over the radio.

One more pace lap to go.

Sun 19:22 IndyCar - Iowa: James Jakes has just become the first driver to be lapped. The Brit was quick before crashing in his heat race yesterday. He's in the back-up car today.

Up at the front it's still James Hinchcliffe leading from Will Power, who is under pressure from Ed Carpenter and Tony Kanaan.

Sun 19:24 NASCAR - Sonoma: Slight delay to the start while the pitlane is cleaned up following a fluid spill from either one of the failed cars or one of the mangled ones.

Jacques Villeneuve's car is also in the pitlane while the Phoenix car try to resolve his gearshift issue.

And out on track, drizzle still falling.

Sun 19:25 IndyCar - Iowa: How's this for a lesson in clearing lapped traffic: 10 laps ago, Hinchcliffe's lead was 1.5s. A few lapped cars later, it's blown out to 5.0s.

Sun 19:27 NASCAR - Sonoma: View from pit crews is that Labonte's JTG Daugherty Toyota is to blame for the fluid spill. Still no start.

Sun 19:27 IndyCar - Iowa: There goes that lead. The yellows are out for debris. We haven't seen what happened yet but there's damage to Ryan Hunter-Reay's front wing. Pretty much everyone stopped under yellows. Tony Kanaan had a slow stop and has dropped back to ninth.

Sun 19:30 NASCAR - Sonoma: Away we go, Ambrose squeezes past McMurray and into the lead by Turn 3.

Sun 19:30 IndyCar - Iowa: There have been a couple of position changes up the front during that stop, mostly due to Kanaan's problem. Hinchliffe still leads but Power has reclaimed second from Carpenter. Andretti and Servia round out the top five.

Sun 19:32 NASCAR - Sonoma: First lap down with no damage. Ambrose pulls out a one-second lead over McMurray, while Montoya - the man many expected to be head-to-head for the lead with Ambrose - has moved up from his disappointing 13th on the grid to 10th.

Sun 19:33 IndyCar - Iowa: Hunter-Reay's damage was the result of contact with the rear of Graham Rahals' car. Restart next time around.

Sun 19:33 NASCAR - Sonoma: Everyone who had a pre-race drama got patched up and sent out again.

Villeneuve has made it up to 36th, while Labonte joined in with a fresh radiator and oil cooler but has now parked in an escape road.

First shunt is David Stremme punting David Ragan around. No yellow.

Sun 19:35 NASCAR - Sonoma: Ah, second shunt already: Montoya clashes with Kyle Busch and pushes him into a spin as they battle for eighth.

Montoya was passing Joey Logano and slid into Busch too. Both keep going, back in 15th and 27th.

Sun 19:35 IndyCar - Iowa: First restart was waved off because there was still a truck on the track. We're back underway now though, and Carpenter has passed Power to reclaim second.

Sun 19:37 IndyCar - Iowa: Given that he's been in the pits twice, Hunter-Reay has done well to remain on the lead lap. Fastest man on the track is Carpenter, who is stalking Hinchcliffe.

Got our first caution, looks like Harraka's fitted in a second crash of the day already, off at the first corner.

Sun 19:41 NASCAR - Sonoma: Several cars near the back go for an early pitstop to gamble on a three-stop strategy. Kyle Busch is among them.

Sun 19:43 NASCAR - Sonoma: About to go green on lap eight...

Sun 19:44 NASCAR - Sonoma: Ambrose holds his lead on the restart, as Kurt Busch sweeps from fourth to second ahead of McMurray.

Sun 19:46 IndyCar - Iowa: The leaders are struggling through traffic, and Andretti has taken second from Carpenter.

Meanwhile, it's worth asking whether Simona de Silvestro has somehow ended up with a Lotus engine again for this weekend, because she is is painfully, painfully slow. Her last lap was 17mph slower than Hinchcliffe's, and in the heat races yesterday she did three laps slower than Carlos Munoz's Indy Lights pole speed.

Sun 19:46 NASCAR - Sonoma: Montoya isn't hanging around, already back up to eighth having dropped to 15th in his clash with Kyle Busch.

Sun 19:51 IndyCar - Iowa: Dario Franchitti is reporting that his car is very loose in traffic. Given that he's currently running in 18th, he's unlikely to find clean air anytime soon.

Up front, it's worth keeping an eye on Graham Rahal, who has been making good progress through the field and is now fighting Andretti for second. Not much love lost between those two, so this could get interesting.

Sun 19:55 NASCAR - Sonoma: Ambrose got his lead up to two seconds for a spell, but by lap 16 Kurt Busch is within half a second of him again. They've broken clear of McMurray.

Sun 20:01 NASCAR: Both NASCAR's top series are on road courses this weekend, and yesterday AJ Allmendinger got his first Nationwide win at Road America.

It was his latest appearance in a Penske car, and just what he needed in a season that had brought lots of fresh opportunities, but few hard results.

Points leader Regan Smith was one of a few drivers caught up in incidents with rapid Australian guest Owen Kelly, last year's Elkhart Lake winner Nelson Piquet Jr ran into Brian Scott, and early lead contender Michael McDowell's engine wilted just a few laps in.

Sun 20:03 NASCAR - Sonoma: Montoya is now past Carl Edwards and into sixth. Next on his list is Matt Kenseth, then it's a six-second gap to Clint Bowyer.

Kurt Busch leads Marcos Ambrose by 1.4s and Jamie McMurray by 2.2s.

Sun 20:04 NASCAR - Sonoma: Yellow is out due to rain. Twenty four laps in, got to be worth pondering a pitstop. Jeff Gordon is already in.

Sun 20:05 IndyCar - Iowa: We were just about to tell you that we nearly avoided a yellow courtesy of a big lose and equally big save from Tristan Vautier, but Alex Tagliani had other ideas. He has spun up towards the wall at Turn 2, although there doesn't seem to be too much damage to the car.

Up at the front, Andretti has passed Rahal to move back into second.

Corn Quick Fact: Corn is produced in every continent of the world with the exception of the Antarctica.

Sun 20:08 IndyCar - Iowa: Back to green.

Sun 20:11 NASCAR - Sonoma: The majority of cars are now pitting.

Turns out Jeff Gordon's stop a lap ago was premature, by the time he committed, the yellow was already out and the pits were closed. It could've been a masterstroke, instead it's a penalty.

Looks like most of the leaders stayed out, so it's still Kurt Busch ahead of Marcos Ambrose, then Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray and now Juan Pablo Montoya up to fifth.

Sun 20:13 IndyCar - Iowa: Debris on the front straight. Rahal has reclaimed second, while Alex Tagliani rejoined the race and promptly began running around in the middle lane at 141mph, which obviously caused some consternation for the cars behind him. He's now back in the pits, and it looks like the team is preparing to retire his car.

Corn Quick Fact: One pound of corn has 1300 kernels.

Sun 20:16 IndyCar - Iowa: Restart. Rahal tries running alongside Hinchcliffe for a lap before settling back behind the Canadian to await another opportunity.

Sun 20:18 IndyCar - Iowa: Currently in third is Hunter-Reay, who has done a superb job to rebound from his earlier problems. He was stuck down in 19th earlier on. Things are going less well for Takuma Sato, who is in the pits with some sort of problem.

Sun 20:20 NASCAR - Sonoma: Back to green and Kurt Busch holds the lead ahead of an aggressive Marcos Ambrose.

Sun 20:22 NASCAR - Sonoma: Another yellow, debutant Alex Kennedy is stopped with a mangled front end, possibly caught up in a chain reaction after Joey Logano pushed David Reutimann into a spin.

Kennedy seems to be out. But for a Humphrey Smith Racing car to still be running as late as lap 31 was pretty surprising anyway.

Sun 20:25 IndyCar - Iowa: Just as we were about to tell you about Hunter-Reay taking second from Rahal, Rahal got past him again. Just off the podium at the moment are Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves, with 59 laps and one pitstop to go.

We haven't mentioned Power lately. He's been going steadily backwards and is currently 18th and two laps down.

Sun 20:26 NASCAR - Sonoma: Everyone who hadn't pitted already now pits, and a few further back top up too.

Ah, not everyone... Kurt Busch stays out in the lead.

Gibbs duo Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin both get speeding penalties.

Brad Keselowski and Aric Almirola are up to second and third. They had stopped under an earlier yellow.

Sun 20:27 IndyCar - Iowa: The leaders pit, and Ed Carpenter leads. It looks like Hunter-Reay has passed Rahal during the stop.

Sun 20:27 NASCAR - Sonoma: Swiftly back to green and Brad Keselowski is all over leader Kurt Busch, whose tyres are now very old.

Keselowski outbrakes Busch and now leads.

There are now three separate strategies unfolding, a three-stop for the likes of Keselowski, a hopefully-two-stop for the likes of Montoya and Ambrose (now back in the pit) and a two-stop for Kurt Busch, who's trying to retake the lead from Keselowski.

Sun 20:30 NASCAR - Sonoma: Lap 35 of 110 and Kurt Busch comes in. That's him committed to a two-stop. He'll rejoin near the tail of the field.

And he gets a pitlane speeding penalty.

Sun 20:32 NASCAR - Sonoma: That's a big blow for Busch. The stop had already dropped him back to 35th, while his former sparring partners Ambrose and McMurray - on a roughly similar strategy - are 15th and 19th after pitting under the previous yellow.

Montoya is third among cars on that tactic and running 20th.

On the road, it's Keselowski leading Kahne, Truex, Vickers and Biffle, all likely three-stoppers.

Basically this race will probably take until about lap 100 until it truly makes sense again, and then it'll be decided by who doesn't hit each other at late-race restarts.

Sun 20:32 NASCAR - Sonoma: Oh and as he pits to take his pitlane speeding penalty, Kurt Busch picks up another pitlane speeding penalty.

He's not going to be entirely chilled about this.

Sun 20:33 IndyCar - Iowa: Carpenter pits from the lead and is delayed by a problem with his right rear during the stop. Wilson briefly inherits the lead but pits a couple of laps later, and has an identical hold-up. Hinchcliffe cycles back into the lead ahead of Hunter-Reay and Rahal.

Sun 20:35 NASCAR - Sonoma: Four-car battle for the lead as Kahne, Truex and Vickers hassle Keselowski and each other. Truex gets up to second.

Meanwhile Ambrose, McMurray and Montoya are steadily picking off cars on alternate strategies in the midfield.

Sun 20:36 NASCAR - Sonoma: Martin Truex Jr goes into the lead ahead of Keselowski as the champion runs wide.

Sun 20:38 IndyCar - Iowa: The 5s lead that Hinchcliffe had over Hunter-Reay a few laps ago has been halved, but that owes a lot to Hinch having to deal with lapped cars. Hunter-Reay still has to clear that same traffic.

Sun 20:40 NASCAR - Sonoma: Keselowski is now down to fourth as Vickers makes it a Michael Waltrip Racing one-two.

Kurt Busch is among the lead quartet and unlapping himself after his multiple penalties.

Sun 20:41 IndyCar - Iowa: Kanaan passes Rahal for third.

Sun 20:45 IndyCar - Iowa: Hinchcliffe cruises across the line to claim his third win of the year ahead of team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay and Tony Kanaan. Ed Carpenter passed Graham Rahal on the final lap for fourth.

Sun 20:53 NASCAR - Sonoma: Truex has caught Kurt Busch again and re-lapped him with a smooth slip down the inside into Turn 11.

Sun 20:56 NASCAR - Sonoma: Truex's lead over team-mate Vickers is now 5s.

Montoya is up to seventh. And if you're wondering why we're mentioning him so much, it's not ex-F1 man bias, but that he's the highest runner on the two-stop strategy that might prove to be the winning choice.

Speaking of former F1 stars, Jacques Villeneuve is officially a retirement. His race never got going thanks to myriad mechanical problems.

Truex pitted just before that yellow, the other three have only made one stop so far, a long while ago.

Truex is straight back into the lead at the restart.

Sun 21:17 NASCAR - Sonoma: Another yellow as Tony Stewart taps Denny Hamlin off the road on the approach to Turn 11.

Hamlin rejoins, but he set fire to the grass along the way.

Sun 21:18 NASCAR - Sonoma: Hamlin asks his crew who he needs to exact revenge on, while Stewart argues his innocence over the radio, saying Hamlin turned across him.

Sun 21:20 NASCAR - Sonoma: The majority of the field pits for a fuel top-up. Truex loses ground by stalling. Ambrose is one of the few to take fresh tyres too.

Forty one laps left, so those with a full tank now have a pretty good chance of making it to the finish without another pitstop.

Joey Logano and Dale Earnhardt Jr among those who stayed out. They lead.

Sun 21:23 NASCAR - Sonoma: Green, then straight back to yellow as the midfield gets entangled on the start/finish straight and Victor Gonzalez Jr (gosh, he was still running) finds himself facing the wrong way in a battered car.

Sun 21:26 WRC - Italy: Sebastien Ogier hadn't won for a whole two rallies. He put that right in emphatic fashion in Sardinia.

Team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala recovered from an SS1 puncture to third, while Thierry Neuville took a career-best second and surged up the championship.

McMurray has had an incident and is limping over the grass with a flat tyre.

Truex, Johnson and Montoya are sixth, seventh and eighth, and all worth keeping an eye on.

Ambrose is now only 19th.

Sun 21:39 WRC - Italy: All weekend we'd refrained from jinxing Robert Kubica by talking about his WRC 2 title chances until his second straight dominant win was secured. But now let's go Kubica-for-champion speculation crazy.

Kubica is now fourth in the standings. WRC 2 drivers contest seven rallies of their choice from the 13, and their best six scores count.

Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari leads and has done five rallies, scoring in each. He's 35 points ahead of Kubica, and doesn't intend to enter the next two rounds.

Kubica has done three rallies, but insists he doesn't plan to do enough events to challenge for the title. He says he can't afford to and is already funding some of his programme out of his own pocket.

Nicolas Fuchs and Yuri Protasov are between Al-Kuwari and Kubica in the points but have each done six rallies already.

Sepp Wiegand is three points behind Kubica and has done four rallies - and is a very quick VW protege.

Then there's Esapekka Lappi, 33 points behind Kubica and 68 off Al-Kuwari, but he's only appeared twice, and he's a mega talent with a factory Skoda.

Fascinating or confusing or both?

Sun 21:40 NASCAR - Sonoma: Jeff Gordon has picked his way forward and now slips ahead of Joey Logano to lead.

Gordon's last pitstop was lap 64 out of 110. With his engineer urging him to charge, that suggests another stop is on the agenda.

Sun 21:42 NASCAR - Sonoma: Kyle Busch is in the tyres after a tap from Carl Edwards, yellow is out.

It was quite an impact, but Busch gets back on track and heads for repairs.

Sun 21:48 NASCAR - Sonoma: Another surge for the pits, as most of the field comes in for enough fuel to comfortably reach the finish, and either two or four tyres.

Those who stay out clearly reckon they can make it to the end on fuel, but they'll still have to be fairly conservative and have older tyres.

Truex leads from Kenseth, Montoya, Biffle, Edwards and Ambrose.

Highest-placed of the drivers who just pitted is Johnson in 16th.

Twenty-five laps to go.

Sun 21:49 IndyCar - Iowa: A 24 car field on a 7/8th mile oval is always going to cause some congestion, and Oriol Servia believes that some of his rivals raced more fairly than others:

'We had a top3 car today, some moves below the belt by a couple guys got the best out of me..'

Sun 22:13 NASCAR - Sonoma: Kurt Busch is still flying and is up to fifth. Truex is keeping the gaps to Montoya and Gordon stable.

Sun 22:15 NASCAR - Sonoma: While it's spread out at front, in the middle of the pack there are still plenty of cars banging wheels and doors. Truex would really, really, really like them all to behave and not cause a yellow.

Five laps to go and Montoya is 6s off the lead, Gordon is a further 3s back.

Sun 22:19 NASCAR - Sonoma: Kenseth, third not too long ago, is tumbling down the order as his tyres wear and he has to save fuel. So far, no one has hit him. This will be a relief for Truex. Two laps to go.

Sun 22:20 NASCAR - Sonoma: Truex onto the final lap. As long as the car keeps rolling, it's in the bag.

Sun 22:20 NASCAR - Sonoma: Heartbreak for Montoya, he's out of fuel and slowing. Second place is lost.

Truex pitted on the same lap as Montoya...

Sun 22:21 NASCAR - Sonoma: Martin Truex Jr wins at Sonoma, six years after his only previous Cup victory at Dover!

Sun 22:40 That brings AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live to a close for the weekend. Thanks for your company.

We'll be back next weekend for MotoGP's classic Assen TT, GP2 and GP3 on the British Grand Prix support bill at Silverstone, more NASCAR at Kentucky Speedway, the historic Ypres Rally in the European Rally Championship, and Sebastien Loeb's shot at Pikes Peak glory.